THERE’S been a lot of talk about the Red Sox and their fans cyber-stealing Derek Jeter’s starting All-Star berth and handing it to hometown favorite Nomar Garciaparra. Forget it. The Yankees, with a usually dependable marketing operation, bungled the job and practically handed Garciaparra the starting gig.

Despite having one of the largest on-line fan databases in sports, at roughly 150,000 names, the Yankees, nonetheless, decided to make only one mass e-mailing to fans to get out the vote and that was early in the balloting when Jeter was comfortably ahead.

The Red Sox, with less than 35,000 names in its web site collection, made one early mailing, as well, but followed it up late in the game when Nomar was still behind Jeter but had narrowed the gap to 7,000 votes.

The second effort, urging fans to get out and vote, paid off. Garciaparra eked out a 20,000-vote victory.

Jeter’s loss left the Yanks a bit red-faced. They have sunk a lot of money into the Internet operation. Fans around the world have responded to that effort, but when it came to using their powerful business weapon to market Jeter – and other Yanks on the ballot – they certainly dropped the ball.

“That effort will improve next year,” a Yankee spokesman told The Post, practically promising more mass e-mailings to fans in 2000. “We need to concentrate on the Internet effort more next year.”

To add insult to injury, one of the unofficial Red Sox fans’ get out the vote e-mail assault made its way to a Yankee employee computer – at Yankee Stadium.

“It said, ‘We can’t let a Yankee start at shortstop at the All-Star game to be played at Fenway Park,’ ” the Yankee employee said, reading the Red Sox fan e-mail.

The Oriole legend said he is tired of being asked questions about his buddy Pete Rose and Charlie Hustle’s possibility of being eligible for Cooperstown down the road and thinks Selig should address the topic so he, Hall of Famers and all fans can put the issue behind them.

In some of his strongest comments to date, Robinson, a Hall of Fame board member and president of the Major League Baseball Players Alumni Assn., said Selig “has duty to do something right away. We have to know something.”

In a telephone interview from his Baltimore home, Robinson said he gets asked “the Pete Rose question” everywhere he goes but has no answer. “I’m waiting for the commissioner to make a decision. It’s terrible being put in this position,”he said.

It’s been nearly 10 years since Rose, a 17-time All-Star and the game’s all-time hit leader with 4,256 safeties, signed an agreement with then-commissioner Bart Giamatti agreeing to a lifetime ban from baseball. The ban makes him ineligible for Cooperstown.

Giamatti, after a lengthy investigation, found that Rose had bet on baseball games. But because no evidence was put into the report, Rose supporters, and others, raise the Rose question every year or two.

Rose petitioned Selig two years ago to reconsider the case. Selig feels the matter is closed.

With two weeks before Hall of Fame inductions, Robinson’s plea probably won’t be the last time the issue is raised this month.

*THE Islanders ice the Rangers. No, not on the ice but in squeezing the most victories out of each salary dollar. Each of the Islanders’ 120 regular season wins over the last five years cost the team $731,000, based on $87.7 million in total paychecks issued over that time. That put the team at No. 16 in efficiency, according to Street & Smith’s Sports Business Journal. The Rangers finished dead last, No. 27, spending $1.1 million for each of its 159 wins since 1994-95.